


Disorientation and Despair

by knightinpinkunderwear



Series: Whumptober 2020 Dexter & Criminal Minds [8]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Calling for help, Canon Compliant, Confusion, Episode: s03e20 Lo-Fi, Episode: s03e20-21 Lo-Fi & Mayhem, Episode: s04e01 Mayhem, Explosions, Explosives, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Injury, Isolation, Ringing Ears, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 04, Short term memory loss, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, disorientation, disoriented, ears ringing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27154082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinpinkunderwear/pseuds/knightinpinkunderwear
Summary: His ears are ringing. He doesn't know why. He's bleeding he doesn't know why. There's fire behind him.Whumptober day 25:Theme: I think I'll just collapse right here, thanksPrompt(s): Disorientation & Ringing Ears
Series: Whumptober 2020 Dexter & Criminal Minds [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946476
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Disorientation and Despair

**Author's Note:**

> I loved the confusion and strange separation from reality Hotch had at the beginning of Mayhem and how quickly it turned to confused panic, it was wonderfully hurtful.

He doesn’t remember hitting the pavement. But he knows he did. 

There’s blood on his face, and little bits of asphalt mixed in. He can see it on the wall of tv screens showing his face. Like a mockery of a mirror room. There’s blood on his shirt too and on his tie. 

His name is Aaron Hotchner. It is 2007. His son’s name is Jack. Haley is his wife. 

(Haley from highschool and pirate plays).

His ears are ringing. He can’t hear anything. 

Yellow and orange flicker behind him on each tv screen. 

There’s singed paper falling from the sky. 

He turns. 

It’s a black SUV. Or what is left of one. 

The windows and doors are gone, it’s on fire. 

_ It exploded.  _

That was how he hit the pavement. 

The blast threw him. The noise deafened him. 

A kid, maybe twenty, is suddenly in front of him. 

The kid is talking. 

His ears are ringing. He can’t hear what the kid is saying. 

He needed to tell Kate about the SUV, about the blast. 

_ Kate! _

They were talking before the blast. And he doesn’t remember quite where he was during it, or where she was. 

There isn’t a body in the SUV, but then where is she? Had she gotten in? No, there would be a body. There had to be a body, the blast hadn’t been big enough to...

Then where was she? 

The kid steps in front of him again. Talking again with words that warble through the air and his ears are still ringing. 

“Call 9-1-1, tell them a bomb went off in a Black SUV, two Federal Agents as casualties,” he says and he can almost hear it, though it is more a feeling than a sound. His ears are still ringing. 

He starts to look for Kate. 

The young man tries to talk to him again, but he doesn’t have time to talk now, he needs to find Kate. 

It doesn’t take long. 

She’s lying on her back, twenty or so feet away. 

He can’t run fast enough, the world is still tilting back and forth at the edge of his vision and the ringing in his ears is still prominent. 

“Whe-.... purse?” she asks but he can’t make out the whole question. There’s blood under her. She’s trying to get up. 

“Lie still, Kate, stay still,” he pleads, she looks _so much_ like Haley. He can’t help but picture her there instead bloody and disoriented and hurt. But she’s not Haley, he  _ knows _ that. 

He doesn’t want Kate to be hurt. Partly because she looks so much like Haley. And the rest because she is his friend. 

He hears the sirens of police and ambulances approaching through the awful ringing in his ears. 

The flashing lights make him dizzier and the ringing louder than ever. But they don’t approach. 

Why aren’t they coming to help?

There must be a reason.

But he can’t remember. 

“Help! Somebody help us!” someone shouts, speaking his mind, and it takes him a moment to recognize that it was him. He was the one shouting. 

But no one is coming to help. 

His ears are ringing and the corners of his vision are getting fuzzier and he screams for someone, anyone to come help. 


End file.
